1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless universal serial bus (USB) host apparatus supporting ultra wide band (UWB) for transforming data stored in a notebook PC to an ultra wide band (UWB) signal, building and controlling a network to connect a plurality of wireless USB devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional external data bus such as a serial port or a parallel port generally provides low data transfer rate and allows limited connections to peripheral devices. In order to overcome such shortcomings of the conventional external data bus, a universal serial bus (USB) was introduced. The USB is one type of serial ports and supports a high-speed data transfer rate, for example 12 Mbps. Also, the USB can be used to connect a plurality of peripheral devices. Accordingly, the USB has been commonly used as a plug and play interface for providing the connections between a host such as a computer and various peripheral devices such as an audio player, a joystick, a keyboard, a telephone, a scanner and a printer. Differently from the conventional external data bus, a single USB port can be used to connect to a plurality of peripheral devices such as a keyboard, a monitor, a mouse, a printer and a MODEM. Maximum 127 peripheral devices can be connected to the host through a single USB port. Due to such advantageous features of the USB port, most of the computers and the peripheral devices support the USB.
A conventional USB interface supports a wired data transmission. However, a wireless communication technology has been dramatically developed, and also, various peripheral devices supporting wireless communication and connectable to a host have been introduced and popularly used among users. In order to provide a wireless link between a host and peripheral devices, a wireless technology for a USB interface has been proposed.
A conventional wireless technology for a USB interface was introduced in Korea Publication No. 2001-0005140, entitled “wireless LAN module using USB interface bus”.
The conventional wireless LAN module includes a connecting unit employing a USB interface. The conventional wireless LAN module converts data to a wireless signal for a wireless local area network employing IEEE 802.11 and transmits the wireless signal through the USB interface of the connecting unit. Therefore, the conventional wireless LAN module provides the improved compatibility.
However, the conventional wireless LAN module builds a local area network based on IEEE 802.11 , and includes a USB chip to connect to a host, i.e., a computer. Accordingly, the conventional wireless LAN module is very difficult to install and has a complicated structure. Furthermore, the wireless communication standard of IEEE 802.11 provides maximum wireless data transfer rate of 54 Mbps and does not guarantee a quality of service (QoS). Therefore, the conventional wireless LAN module cannot be used to transmit real-time audio/video data.
As described above, the conventional technology is not suitable to high-speed wireless data transmission between a computer and peripheral devices.
Recently, a high-speed communication technology using an ultra wide band (UWB), i.e., several GHz, is introduced. Such an UWB communication technology supports faster data transfer rate, i.e., 500 Mpbs to 1 Gbps, than IEEE 802.11 or Bluetooth, and consumes less power, for example 1/100 of cellular phone or wireless LAN. It is possible to adapt the UWB communication technology to a short-range personal network to connect a personal computer (PC), peripheral devices and electric appliances separated each others within a short range, i.e., average of about 10 to 20 m or maximum of about 100 m, through a high-speed wireless interfaces.
Therefore, there is a great demand of a wireless USB host apparatus supporting the UWB to effectively connect the computer and a plurality of peripheral devices, to easily build a personal wireless network, to support high-speed data transfer rate and to guarantee a quality of service (Qos).